The Most Important Acronym to Your Networking

Why collaborations matter when building your network

Fun Acronyms

Acronyms make things fun. And things which are fun and useful? Those are the best. When it comes to building your minimum viable network, there is only one acronym that matters: A.B.C.

Obligatory Musical Collaboration Examples

Think about some of the most successful artists in history; chances are whichever genre you’re focusing on, there are examples of collaborations which you may not have even been aware of. Sometimes these are some of an artist’s most well-known songs.

Why Collaborate?

If the end goal is to disseminate your name and reputation more amongst a new network, view opportunities to collaborate on articles or podcast episodes as compensation in and of themselves. The prospect of someone opening up their network to you through a co-publication or guest spot is invaluable, especially in a niche industry. Collaborating well on such a project will also tell your contact that you’re reliable and can produce great content for their network. This is the end goal; to get them to invite you back to do it again in the future.

When Collaborations Don’t Work

When you’re involved in someone else’s project, let them run the show and suggest feedback where needed and when it’s appropriate. Accept and respect that they may do things differently than you would, and may go in a different direction that you want. If that ends up being the case, simply state whatever feedback you might have in a respectful and reasonable manner, and then let it be. If it’s not your project, there’s no upside to having an argument over the details as if it is.

When Collaborations Do Work

When collaborations do work, though, they can change your whole universe. This may not — and usually doesn’t — happen overnight. It takes time for new relationship dynamics to gestate and the benefits of those collaborations may not be seen for months or even years. But once you have collaborated with someone on something, two things are indisputably true:

  1. You’ve now (presumably) had a direct interaction with that person, and
  2. You’ve now created something together with that person (in this respect, feedback does indeed count as something created, since it helps the overall creation process)

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Master Relationship Builder @Zero2OneNetwork 🚀 | @ATLTechVillage Advisor 😎 | Speaker 🎙️ | Prev. CEO @glipple + published @crunchbase, @mattermark + more ✍️

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Adam Marx

Master Relationship Builder @Zero2OneNetwork 🚀 | @ATLTechVillage Advisor 😎 | Speaker 🎙️ | Prev. CEO @glipple + published @crunchbase, @mattermark + more ✍️